I Want to Divorce My Wife, But I Can’t

I Want to Divorce My Wife, But I Can’t

The Philippines is the only country in the world that doesn’t have a Divorce Law. I don’t know if this is true for I have only known this from the background statement of the proposed Divorce Bill being refiled by a Gabriela Partylist representatives for the 5th attempt.

Anyway, I am very curious to know this House Bill 2380, Philippine Divorce Bill in the house of representative. Emmi A. De Jesus and Arlene D. Brosas of Gabriela Women’s Party have refiled this bill which is anchored in 5 reasons why the Philippines should have a divorce law.

Statistics show

They have the proof that Philippine society is ready for the legalization of this divorce bill. They claim that divorce is the solution to marriage which is no longer working. The quality of marital relationships is beyond realization. It couldn’t be attained anymore. So there is no other way to be at ease with that kind of marriage than a divorce could be availed of.

They had also cited statistics that divorce should be imposed. Can you imagine that 14.4 % of married women suffered physical violence and 23 % disturbed by emotional violence? As to the incidence of violence against women (VAW), it has increased in 2004 to 2012, while physical injuries recorded to 21%, the police reported.

From the court’s record, many have filed petitions for nullity and annulment of marriage and in the last decade, there were 4,520 petitions in 2001 and they reached to 10,528 in 2011. That simply shows that there are around 30 petitions a day.

5 Reasons why husband or wife should divorce his or her spouse when he or she is:

1. Separated de facto from his or her spouse for at least five (5) years and reconciliation is highly improbable;
2. Legally separated from his or her spouse for at least two (2) years and reconciliation is highly improbable;
3. Irreparable breakdown of the marriage;
4. Psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations; and
5. Suffering from irreconcilable differences.

Personally, I don’t favor for this proposal for this would be abused by either man or woman. By the way, as a faithful and responsible family, I know marriage is “ordained by God” and anyone doesn’t have the authority to put man and woman who are bound by marriage be separated. Besides, a family is a great opportunity for husband and wife to “procreate” the Spirit children of God. It is their great spiritual stewardship to do it.

However, according to the group of women, divorce is necessary to be legalized for there are many married women who are unable to stay away from the “unhappy and failed marriages”. What can you say about this point of view?

I think there are a lot of marriages that people enter into without truly understanding what a marriage means. In these cases, divorce is sometimes just an easy way out when things get difficult.

But I do think that if a couple has deep issues (domestic violence, emotional abuse, arguing to the point that it’s impacting one or both spouse’s mental health or their children’s wellbeing, etc.) divorce may be the only solution.

I do agree with you. You are right. But I am too wary about its imposition in our country once it becomes a law. The rich would abuse. The poor have never thought it. However, in any way, divorce has its advantage especially as mentioned “irreparable marriages”.

It may be that the poor will find another way out. In Quebec, now 50% of all couples choose not to marry. Even those who have children together will often choose not to marry. This way, there are fewer complications if they decide to split up. No need to be rich!

In our place, battered wife has no choice or way to leave his cruel hubby. As long as they live with each other, the couple would be separated, meaning the victim wife could just leave her husband or else she would be receiving a harder punishment to her body. People around them are just ignoring the incident.

It can take years and years to raise awareness of domestic violence, Gil. And years more after that, to get the legal system and society to look after a battered spouse instead of shaming or ignoring her. It’s sad, but eventually change does come.

What a shame! The man and woman are bound by the matrimony of marriage that man could put them asunder. And they are told to love one another. But after several years of marriage, the man or the woman has loved another one. Too bad!

Every situation is different. I know in the States some times in order to get a divorce the couple has to go through marriage counselling. One should go through marriage counselling before one gets married. Some people think that divorce is the easy way out instead of working on the marriage.

In our country, before anyone to get married, the couples have to undergo a counselling. The social welfare will handle that and it will issue a certification that the couples are not ready to tie knots with each other.

In countries where there is a national religion, there are also laws that support that which the religion represents. For those who do not believe in the God of your understanding, should the same religious laws also apply to them?

For these reasons and many more, this is why I believe there needs to be a separation of church and state. Otherwise you get people who say marriage is from God therefore divorce is wrong. And many of these people that are saying that are the ones who are the abusers in a relationship and justify their abuse based on some sort of biblical principle ( or other religious Doctrine) being the head of the household.

@nakitakona13 Though I respect your right to believe that this book has the right answer for you, I cannot accept that all people in the world should be ruled by this book and the guilt/shame it dumps on the heads of those who violate the legalism that it invokes.

I hope you get the divorce law. I know many look down on America for having a high divorce rate. However, I am glad we have the option of divorce if one can afford it. I think domestic abuse should be a reason to grant divorce.

I don’t know if it costs something to file a divorce in case it would be legalized. If that is so, those who couldn’t afford it wouldn’t enjoy it. Frankly speaking, it is to costly to get justice in our country.

children are most affected members of the family when the parents will be divorced but they will suffer too if they see their parents keep fighting everyday, this is the main reason why there is a lot of rebels, so i guess it is fine to make the divorce law legal here in Philippines